Posted
by
simoniker
on Thursday November 06, 2003 @06:52AM
from the let-me-do-this-to-fellow-commuters dept.

unassimilatible writes "Satellite Security Systems, in cooperation with the California Highway Patrol and InterState Oil Company, demonstrated the first wireless remote shutdown of a fully loaded, moving gas tanker truck. Described as "a viable solution to the challenge of controlling rogue hazardous waste vehicles that could pose a threat to homeland security," satellite communications were used to disable the truck in seconds, 530 miles from the demonstration site. But that's not all. California Assembly Bill (AB) 575 (PDF link) would require truck disabling devices, global positioning or other 'location reporting systems' on all hazardous material haulers. With all of the police pursuits in California, can mandatory GPS and disabling devices in all vehicles be far away?"

Imagine the US gets attacked by an organised force. Suddenly, the enemy has the full ability to completely disable the transport infrastructure. Not only that, with a minimum of their own vehicles they can have a replacement that they fully control within days.

Actually if you want to look it up, most of the erosion of rights like this started with the clinton administration. Bush is merely has been keeping the status quo

Now I'm not debating the erosion of rights under clinton, but let's not pretend that he started the ball rolling.

Remember Regan's "war on some drugs" which has given us asset forfeiture , drug tests, mandatory minimum's and long jail substances for users (violating the 4th ammendment). Remember also that Ed Meese, Regan's attorney general,tried valiantly to outlaw pornography and other "filth".

What about that bastard Lincoln who said I couldn't own slaves? There was some massive asset forfeiture going on there. And then there was something in 1776 that said I can't take action against people because of their speech and religion. And what about my self-perceived right to kill whoever I want?

No, I don't agree with those, but my point is that everyone has something they think is being taken away from them. You will only have maximum rights when all laws are gone, but you can bet your ass that t

That's not quite true. You can regulate the base desires to be cruel to your fellow man without regulating base desires that affect only yourself. The problem laws are the ones that attempt to regulate private behaviour between consenting adults, like anti-sodomy laws or the selective drug laws. These laws restrict what people can to do without improving society.

I have no problem with rational laws that have a net benefit for society. The problem is the irrational laws that restrict freedoms without pr

What about that bastard Lincoln who said I couldn't own slaves? There was some massive asset forfeiture going on there. And then there was something in 1776 that said I can't take action against people because of their speech and religion. And what about my self-perceived right to kill whoever I want?

Those are all things that take away the rights of other people.

You taking drugs does not at first glance hurt other people, and it would not be outlawed if this was the whole story. Drugs are basically ou

Dont know if you've noticed, but the democrats and the republicans ARE THE SAME THING. They both want the same thing in the end, just have subtly different ways of going about it. The only person that ever stood out and stood up was JFK, and look what happened to him.

Dont know if you've noticed, but the democrats and the republicans ARE THE SAME THING. They both want the same thing in the end, just have subtly different ways of going about it.

Personally, the differences between them have always reminded me of that old Miller Lite beer commercial. You know the one where two groups of tough guys are arguing in a bowling alley about the beer's best quality. One side shouts "less filling!" then the other side shouts back "tastes great!" (repeat until 30 seconds are up).

> And just think of the damage to our celebrity-based economy when OJ Simpson style chases no longer command our blistering attention several times a week. Why, those news anchors would actually have to focus on real news!

Huh? Are you nuts? This is a Godsend!

"Live and direct on KTLA, we have a tanker truck full of TNT, it's been stolen and it's on a rampage! We have word from the authorities that the GPS failsafe is on board and ready for activation, causing the truck to careen out of control

I'm the sysadmin at a trucking company and we've had kill switches on engines as well as gps tracking for a long time. Most major carriers do, if not for hazmat, for pharmacuticals and baby formula. In fact, we have flowthrough to our EDI system so that our customers can track thier own loads if they want to and stop calling us about it. Anyone ever heard of AIRIQ?

From S3's headquarters in San Diego -- 530 miles from the demonstration site -- satellite communications were used to disable the truck in seconds, proving S3's GlobalGuard and FleetGuard a viable solution to the challenge of controlling rogue hazardous waste vehicles that could pose a threat to homeland security.

And in other news, based on these tests the US Government signed a contract for full support for follow-up product for remote control of mobile military weaponry. You know, to make sure control

This is also going to be bad for the USA export sectors. Say you're in a developing country and you're trying to convince the client to buy a fleet of $100,000 American tractor-trailers vs. a Korean or German company's product.

Some recent-graduate twerp in the purchasing dept (who got deported from the US on a visa screw-up because the Homeland Security couldn't tell the difference between him and the thousand other students with the same name, then had to start university studies all over in anoth

They can't possibly require a working signal to work or these things would have serious problems with tunnels and such.

So you put a time limit on it - 5 or 10 minutes without a signal, for example, and the engine shuts itself down. That should give the truck plenty of time to get through a tunnel, but still require a more sophisticated hack than just snapping the antenna off.

LOL, never got stuck in the Callahan or Sumner tunnels in Boston, I take it?

Granted, you're not typically running a rig through a tunnel, but a shutdown should not be the default action. What if the command center goes offline or the receiver stops working. I don't exactly want a HAZMAT truck coming to a grinding halt in the middle of I95.

Actually, in practice the safest way to stop a truck is not to cut off it's engine while its running but to make it unable to restart once it sotps. We do this from time to time but not often as its best not let the driver know that we can kill his engine (generally we'll shut off his fuel card instead).

Also, we use GPS on our tractors and our trailers and the unit in the tractor is mounted behind the glovebox, antenna and all, there's nothing external to 'see' so unless you knew what you were looking for

The "Black box" would be about the size of a deck of cards and would look just like any other control box on the car truck.

But presumably these trucks are mass produced, and so the control box is likely to be in the same place in each one. Find out where it goes (either by industrial espionage, or just stripping one down and looking for it) and that little bit of security through obscurity is useless.

To hack it you would have to be INSIDE the control center as (I hope) they don't allow the systems on the Internet, the beam things up directly from a sat. dish on sire.

That only increases the difficulty of the attack, it doesn't make it impossible. If the control computers are on the company's network, then it may be possible to get in with a laptop and connect to the network that way. Ultimately though, if a group is resourceful and determined enough, they could just turn up with some firepower and take the place by force.

Note that I'm not screaming that the sky is falling - just pointing out that very little is impossible. I actually agree with you that this is probably a pretty good idea, for that class of transport. Making something harder to do than it's worth is what security is all about, after all.

A while ago, the governor of South Carolina decided that he wasn't getting enough press during election time, so he started a mini-battle against the DOE and their nuclear installation (SRS) located in the south-west portion of SC. He decided that no more nuclear waste would be allowed to enter the state [for harmless processing] and eventually ended up sending the state's military against the Fed's mixed caravan of the military and HazMat vehicles

So instead of getting one of those devices that turns red lights to green, I could just block all the side roads along my way with dead trucks:) Traffic chaos for everyone else and clear roads for me:)

Don't worry: if I know bag guys -- and I do -- with any luck they'll be foolhardy enough to carry it around in a plastic bag - if my bottle of milk is anything to go by, this gizmo's gotta be heavy enough to make those flimsy "handles" snap.

Road transport is already highly controlled, specially for hazardous materials. Things as (the terms might be off since I'm a Spaniard and I'm not sure how it is exactly in English) the driver's log book, tachometer register and tracking, and so on. Neither of these have made their way into "normal" vehicles (your car or mine, that is).

No, he means "tachograph" - it's a modified speedometer that draws a graph of speed against time on a circular chart. Googling for "tachograph" will turn up lots more information. They've been fitted to lorries and buses in the UK and Europe for about 20 years now. Basically it's a form of automatic logging.

While not manditory, the foundations for this are already being setup by the continued expansion of the OnStar (and maybe others?) systems. Given that, I think that the paranoid "slippery slope" underpinnings of the article poster to be a bit melodramatic. I know that they've also been working on various EMP systems to try to shut cars down remotely.

Trucks that get Hazmat certification already are very highly regulated, far more so than normal trucks and passenger cars.

Requiring them to have onboard GPS with remote deactivation makes sense here, and I don't think that just because hazmat tucks have it that it will be forced upon everyone. Commercial traffic, especially hazmat, has far less 4th amendment protections than your average joe.

Requiring them to have onboard GPS with remote deactivation makes sense here, and I don't think that just because hazmat tucks have it that it will be forced upon everyone.

Don't be so sure. It's already on the table [slashdot.org] in the UK. It started out as just a way to collect use fees on high-traffic roads turing peak times, but is slated to expand into a means to enforce all traffic regs.

Can't happen in the U.S. you say? Maybe not, but photoradar had no trouble jumping the pond.

the funny part is that adding that is 100% useless in preventing a "bad guy" from doing a "dasterdly deed"

it is really fricking easy to disable a remote disable system. Hell, remember the "car tracking" systems they sold years ago that will let cops know where your stolen car is? thieves learned in a very short time how to very simply disable lojack transmitters.

Hell there was a black market SELLING lojack devices that were removed from stolen cars!

Through the end of the year you can use a personal locating system for free at uLocate.com [ulocate.com] They have feature like the ability to set a virtual fence around an area and get a text message or email if a phone goes in or out of the fence. You can see the location of all the phones in your account from any Java enabled phone

What happens if the bad guys get hold of the technology and shutdown all trucks for the Chaos. Or purhaps use it to disable trucks carring high value items so they can be robbed.

Whats to stop the "Criminal" them just ripping out the black box before driving the truck way? "Criminals" don't obey laws (hence being criminals) so won't mind being illegal and not having the shutdown circuit!

Sorry. As a german citizen I always saw the USA as an example of freedom. Whats going on in the last few years is seriously disturbing, though. I hope Europe doesnt jump on the train again. I wouldnt love to see this kind of Orwellian politics over here as well. If this really takes off please rebel against since this trend really cuts into privacy and freedom rights of everyone of us...

??? why? because he is right or because you are bigoted? Most Europeans (except the British) have first hand experience of war and real lack of freedom. From that experience they have a far deeper understanding of the real issues involved.The US has great claims to freedom but in reality has few real freedoms compared to Europe. Most Americans are keen to rant on about the 'constitution' as if they have the only one. Yet how many understand the ECHR ? Freedom of speech existed in Europe (e.g. Speaker

That's not true. Most europeans have no concept of war. Most of those that have experienced the privations of war are dead (except in those countries that can't resist a good civil war).

Unlike most North Americans, most Europeans where in the middle of the cold war, most people in Germany had relatives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Most Europeans can drive for a couple of hours and still see how "bad" it was over there, you can still find places where you can see bullet holes in Walls. If you go through some woods you can still see bomb craters, some old, destroyed buildings.

If you go a bit east of Berlin and walk through woods and fields you can still find human remains from the battle of Berlin in '45.

If you have a Metal detector you can still find bullets, Dog Tags and other stuff.

Even though "Western Europe" was pretty much war free for the past 50 years, conflicts where always raging nearby. While the US lived in "harmony" with itself there was terrorism in Europe (think RAF in Germany for example).

Yeah, Europeans have no concept of cultural diversity either, right?

Go, get a passport and travel a bit.

France didn't get involved because it was owed money and knew once the deals were exposed wouldn't receive a franc.

If anything they were afraid of loosing Euros. But in reality the US supplied just as much, if not more, materials to Iraq than the Europeans did.

Furthermore, it is very clear that the US Government knew what Saddam was using it for. While in Germany for example there were public investigations into the involvement of the then German Government in those deals and the companies fined money, the US didn't do anything like it.

Despite that there even is Photograhic evidence that Rumsfeld was shaking hands and telling jokes with Saddam.

Really? So by implication the US and GB went to war for oil. Can you support this? I'm not aware of any "oil dividend" either nation has received...no spoils of war. You shouldn't spout rhetoric unless you can support it.

Well,

it looks like you still pay the price in Blood these days, but you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart? When was the last time the US did something just out of pure humanism?

The reality is the US is about money (or the illusion of it), humanitarian effort don't quite fit in there.

So tell me, why exactly did the US go into Iraq (and the UK happily followed)? If it wasn't for the oil, then it was for what? WMDs?

The real reason france and germany didn't go to war is because going to war would interfere with vacation time.

Wow, now that was a real good argument.

Of course, the french have that 35 hour work week with a similar amount of vacation time. See, that's why all the useful things like the Internet and computer you are using and the airplane you take on vacation were invented in the US

Actually the Computer was invented in Germany, too bad, so was TV btw, but heck, who really cares right?

You are just jealous because people can actually live a happy life without working 50 weeks out of the year.

Furthermore, you seem to think the more people work the more productive they are, that this might not be the case somehow escapes you.

I worked in both places and I can tell you that the per hour productivity in Europe is a lot higher, when people are at work, they work, don't talk at the water cooler, but hey, it's all about stereotypes here, isn't it? No real arguments, so use stereotypes.

But in reality the US supplied just as much, if not more, materials to Iraq than the Europeans did.

The Iraqi military was 70% Russian/Soviet equipment, %20 French, and %10 Other(mostly European). The French are well-known arms-whores. The US doesn't sell to countries it decides are "evil".

it looks like you still pay the price in Blood these days, but you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart? When was the last time the US did something just out of pure humanism?

Strange, I think my parents are still alive and they were also alive in the war. I know of lots of old people that bore me whenever they can with their war stories. Maybe history is not your subject but it is only 60 years since the war and life expectancy here is longer than that. Although, as a generalisation, 'most' of them are dead and the rest of them are fed up with people dying for the fun of it.

Then you are not following what is happening. Iraq had borrowed heavily to build new infrastructure which was destroyed in the war.

No, it's utterly obvious that the large sums of money borrowed by the Baathist government for public infrastructure improvements was not actually used for that purpose. The electrical distribution network, for example, was using 1950's technology, and outside of Baghdad there was no power for much of the day. The water purification plants and sewage plants were in a state of terrible neglect. Even the earmarked oil-for-food money was diverted, thanks to the incompetently lax management of the UN. Look at the huge palaces and mosques. The only improvements made were those that contributed to directly the glorification and comfort of the ruling officials, especially Hussein himself.

They are now expected to use the oil revenue to rebuild what was destroyed in the war. America decides who gets the contracts to rebuild and awards the contracts to American companies that submit closed bids. The oil flows again and America gets the money. Iraq has to pay yet again for infrastructure that it still has to pay for the first building of. And America wonders why the Arabs hate them ?

See above. Much of the infrastructure that hadn't already fallen apart due to deliberate neglect was damaged in the Gulf War of 1991, when Hussein invaded Kuwait. (Remember that?) It was not rebuilt, despite claims to the contrary by the Hussein government and despite aid given them for that purpose.

As for American companies getting the many of the contracts, yeah, so what? You may have noticed that we're also paying $87 billion for the reconstruction. The recent "study" which attempted to coorelate campaign contributions to contracts is so flawed as to be completely bogus. And the UN has turned tail and run, clearly showing how interested they really are in long term results.

Forget Palestine, just follow what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What's happening in Afganistan? We dealt one of the world's major terrorist operations a critical if not fatal blow. We've freed the people who live there from a regime that killed people for such horrible transgressions as being a female teacher, and kept those same people from reasserting control. And then, unfortunately, we turned over reconstruction to the UN, which has spent most of the time since shuffling paper and contemplating their navels instead of fixing things.

What's happening in Iraq? We're rebuilding infrastructure that's been broken for decades, often using the huge piles of cash that the Baathists had hidden for their own use. We're establishing a police force that's not controlled by a sadistic madman and his sons. We're rebuilding hospitals and given them modern equipment. We're opening schools where the students aren't required to sing songs praising said dictator or arrested and taken from their parents for criticism of the government. For the first time in memory, Iraqi's are allowed demonstrations, private newspapers, and free speech. There are people who don't want these things to happen, including the ones that style themselves as martyrs and kill civillians to encourage a return to the good old days when all these things were illegal and the people knew their place. Right under their heels, of course.

Do not forget that the rest of us get hurt in the revenge attacks that American actions create... I am fed up with terrorism and am therefore against this American war on Terrorism and the terrorism that it creates. I think that it is time the rest of the world started a war on terrorism and stopped the US stupidities.

Er, yes, because there was no terrorism before bad ol' America got involved. Just like there were no Nazis before Churchill got all worked up over that silly Poland thing and ruined peace in our time.

If we were all just nice to the terrorists and left them alone, why then they wouldn't have to hijack planes and

at least we might finally get rid of the idiotic speed limit concept : if it's that important not to drive that fast, then we should have our car slowed down remotely instead of having some policeman whinning avout a "danger".I once got a fine, by snail mail, one month after driving a 100km/h on an highway because some Belgian cop decided to put a 50km/h speed limit fine 10 meters OVER the lane.I argued that the traffic was dense, so this only meant everybody was driving that fast but this just didn't help.

Obviously there will be many comments along the lines of "bad technology will cause more problems than it solves".

In the case of bulk industrial transport, it's painfully obvious that what's needed is not just more automation, but a shift away from roads and onto rail.

Rail is much safer and better controllable than road traffic. No-one would argue against remote control (at least emergency override) of train traffic, indeed I believe this had been standard operating procedure for some time in many countries.

Yes, but where your logic fails is that 1) train tracks are very expensve to build and 2) you still have to get the material from the rail termination to the final destination.

You can think of it as the broadband problem, but without the luxury of counting RF carriers. Much of the US population has broadband available, but more than 95% of the US landmass does not have access to hardwired broadband. Build a house 300 miles from the Washington DC and you'll find that "high speed internet access" means that

Criminals don't acquire anything using the same means as law abiding citizens and companies (i.e: Guns, drugs/perscription or otherwise/, and in this case hazourdous material. Although this could be used to stop hijacked trucks, it won't stop the guy with a *van* full of materials that was stolen.

Your a terrorist. You want to steal a tanker truck full of some toxic chemical and blow it up/release it in a city , whatever. Do you

A) Break into a truck depot at some obvious time (where there just happens to be a truck full of something nasty) and put the pedal to the metal and hope no one stops you before you reach your target. Or

B) Steal a truck WEEKS in advance , have time to throughly remove any id , electronic shutdown aids, put fake plates on , respray, fill with a chemical of your choice and drive normally into the city unrecognized?

Terrorists might be evil but generally they're NOT stupid. The is just more balony about "stopping terrorism" that we've had consistently since 9/11 and I for one am sick of being treated like some wide eyed brainless child who's supposed to accept all these removals of libery with a thumbs up and a "god sake america!"

B) Steal a truck WEEKS in advance , have time to throughly remove any id , electronic shutdown aids, put fake plates on, respray, fill with a chemical
of your choice and drive normally into the city unrecognized?

Why did I just hear the theme to the A-Team playing, and imagine a long useless video segment of Face and Murdock fighting over who gets to use the welding torch next?

a) This cuts out one method of opportunity for exploitation. Even if another X methods remain there is still value in reducing avenues for exploitation.

b) If I am a terrorist I do things the easiest and simplest way possible. If I can simply walk onto a plane with a box cutter then I do that rather fucking around with complex plans.If I can effectively walk away with a truck preloaded with bad shit I will do that rather than committing a bunch of other independant crimes as a lead up, spending time loadi

To the paranoid... get over yourself. Like they're going to track you down and shut down your car and arrest you for the CD full of pirated MP3s in your stereo.

If they know who you are, it's easier to just send the cops to your house. This is useful for hijacked hazmat vehicles and maybe eventually for stopping high-speed chases or tracking fleeing felons. Not for keeping tabs on everyone... not even California has enough state employees for that kind of volume.

As a trucker, I'll weigh in on this. The systems on trucks are generally Qualcomm satellite systems. The problem with that being it relies on a line-of-sight link with the satellite. Going up a mountain, pulling under a fuel island, all sorts of normal operation things cut the signal. Lots of guys put trashcans over their dishes at night so dispatch won't bother them while they're sleeping.

So this fancy-shmancy Homeland Security plan can be defeated with a trashcan. Satellite signal blocked = No shutting the truck down remotely. And I know what you're all thinking, "What a redneck, we could just make it where X minutes of signal blockage shuts down the truck!" Right. And if there's a traffic jam in a tunnel, you'll just exacerbate it by having a dead truck there? This is just another of the gov't's "Big Ideas That Will Not Work."

It's easy to block those satellite signals, and it's not reasonable to put a timer on it so that X minutes of no signal == shut down truck.

Sure. They'll pitch this as an anti carjack, kidnap, child abduction law to get soccer mom buy in and then they'll just make it a required part of the annual safety inspection for new vehicles. As old vehicles go out of service there will be little need to grandfather them in.

Step 2 is constant motion monotoring to insure speed limit and red light compliance. This will be pitched as a cost savings measure since fewer cops will be needed. You'll simply get a bill in the mail each month for your driving usage and overage a.k.a. speeding/violations.

Step 3 is a comprehensive shut down program. Unpaid fines, lapsed insurance, orders of protection, domestic violence, etc. Will all be used to trigger the vehicle's shutdown.

I often wonder whether policy makers have even heard of a systems approach to security.

In the media, infrequently asked questions include:

What action is this intended to prevent? Hopefully, it is obvious that security measures should prevent serious threats to security.

Will the proposed measure prevent this action? There's no point in building a security fence which doesn't completely encircle the object which it's intended to protect. If alternate routes are readily available, a security measure give

Most of the HAZMAT isn't particularly hazardous. It's just not acceptable for landfills, usually because it leaches oil or metals.

The nasty McGuffins in movies just aren't. If it's unstable, no-one wants to transport it, and will neutralize on-site. About the worse thing I've seen is used transformer oils (PCBs) and cutting oils.

There _are_ serious road-vector hazards (LPG, halogens), but no one is talking of them.

"With all of the police pursuits in California, can mandatory GPS and disabling devices in all vehicles be far away?"
Well, the next time I want to evade police, I'll disable the GPS box or buy my vehicle out-of-state.

Holes in the plan aside, given how susceptible police are to litigation, the first time someone is injured in a crash after their car is shut down at 70 mph, they're going to sue to bejesus out of the cops. And probably win.

Ahh, good old alarmist Slashdot. I, for one, am glad to hear these unfounded paranoid predictions every so often. It makes me feel quite reasonable and level-headed, even though I always have to sit with my back to the wall in restaurants.

People have been slapping LoJack and other vehicle recovery systems onto their cars for years, yet cars still get stolen. If your car is valuable enough, high-tech thieves will always be able to disable any alarm or tracking system you have installed. They can drive the car into a shielded garage (or simply deep into an underground garage) and work on it at their leisure, without being tracked.

The principle at work here is identical to the principle that drives software piracy. If someone gets hold of your protected object and has free reign to do anything he wants to its guts, then any protection you can built into the object is surmountable given a sufficiently determined cracker/thief with the right tools.

It's perfectly possible to "shut down" a vehicle without stopping the engine. Simply have the "shut down" system set the engine power to idle and automatically apply the brakes. An idling engine still produces power for the accessories (power steering pump).

Also, a truck braking system is a lot different to your car. I often drive a fairly small truck (only 7.5 tonnes) but the braking system is radically different from that of your car. They are AIR BRAKES. Air brakes will fail safe - loss of pressure in t

Or you could drive a Citroen, where you have a weird hybrid of air brakes and hydraulic brakes. You have high pressure hydraulics, which operate the suspension, power steering (fully powered, with no mechanical connection between steering wheel and road wheels on some models), and brakes. The brake valve works very much like the self-lapping valve in an air brake system, but with oil instead of air. It makes ABS very, very simple to implement. You have an 1800kg, 140mph car fitted with single-piston brak

They aren't going to just randomly stop a vehicle. In all probability, a police vehicle will already be in pursuit, and will order the stop at an appropriate time (i.e. not when the tanker truck is halfway across the tracks)

We get Fox there first to film it and if it goes bad we don't tell anyone that the truck was shut down. So if all goes well we get good press and if all goes pear shaped we say 'hell, look at this disaster... we need a device that can stop this by shutting down rogue trucks before they can cause this sort of incident!!!'

I believe the On star system doesn't completely shut down the vehicle... it just limits its speed if the vehicle is stolen to something rediculuosly slow. The idea being that it's easier and safer to catch the thief.

If this stuff is your reason for not coming to America, you don't realize how good most of America is. This stuff actually is rare in the US, and it often gets some press. The US isn't as bad as the past year implies.

Walkiry made a good point in the previous post regarding trucks already having to have log books, make extra stops along the way at weigh stations, etc... There are tighter regulations for HazMat trucks.

But think about it this way. Like any car alarm, any yahoo with a pair of wire cutters can disable hardware like this. There is no way the US Gubment is interested in trying to enforce something like this on every Bob and Tom's car.

I agree to some extent. However, I would imagine that most people's views on Israel are less informed than you think -- I'd wager that the average American doesn't know what country Israel is in conflict with.

Americans don't seem to know or care much about Israel at all. "America" reportedly has an opinion on the matter, but that's the government, not the population.

On one hand, many people do not seek outside news sources. On the other hand, they are not nearly as widely available as localized news sourc

My rant was about something that is real and is happening. I judge Americans by my time there and my American friends, I judge America by its actions. I would be going to far off topic (more than already) to go on about the racism, being told not to say what I thought etc. I did not see any more freedom during my time in the US than I have in most other countries I have been to.

I met a lot of great people and many are still friends, but America no longer stands for freedom in my eyes or in the eyes of

After all, lorries and buses in the UK are supposed to have speed limiters restricting them to 90kph. You'd be amazed how they *somehow* become intermittent, and only work every couple of months when the vehicle goes for its MOT inspection.

Furthermore, there are a *fuckload* of cars and lorries out there. Are they seriously suggesting retrofitting such a device to existing vehicles? How, exactly, would they be able to do this?